Chapter Text
Belos hated everything about the boiling isles, it's godless demons, and witches, it’s abominable magic, its unnatural waters and lands, what he hated most about the isles was its corruptive nature. It had taken Caleb from him and kept corrupting him over and over again. Belos thought he’d finally got it right with the last one. But no she messed it up again, Evelyn no matter how many times he tries to redeem his brother he always falls to temptation.
The collector often asked him why he brought her back with Caleb if he’d just break them both when they got too friendly. That childish specter would never understand that she was the final test for Caleb, to see if he would fail God or stay righteous. He’d given Caleb 16 chances for redemption and he was rapidly running out of chances, the resources to make grimwalkers were limited, and he had exhausted the last of the stone sleepers making the last copy of Evelyn. Caleb’s newest chance was made from other components, however greater basilisks were just as irksome to grow and dissect as finding a new stone sleeper was.
Belos is violently dragged from his thoughts by the collector, squealing like an over eager child. “Belos!” He says excitedly his form spreading over the wall into a vague outline of a child. “Something big just happened in the woods.”, “it was like….” The collector’s form scattered across the room as though he’d exploded.
“It could be anything, but I’d bet it was a rogue portal.” This draws Belos’s attention, he knew there was a stable portal somewhere on the isle the collector let told him that but typically refused to tell him where calling it a “game of hide and seek” now he was giving Belos the location of a portal.
It didn’t take Belos long to find the site of the portal, the raw titan magic of wild portals leaves an unmistakable trace. All Belos had to do was follow the traces of magic and he’d find his goal.
Most wild portals were not worth investigating, most only leaving behind a few scraps of junk from the human realm, but arriving upon the center of the anomaly Belos paused, there was a curled up form. It wasn’t unheard of for animals to be caught up in the portals but what gave him real pause was the sound of sniffling.
Belos almost let out a cry of surprise, it had been centuries since there had been another human on the isles his thoughts spin, the lord must be giving him a sign but what does it mean another human, was his work almost done no, it was still 8 years before the eclipse, then what…. Oh, he’d been planning on replacing the silver guard. she here to help redeem Caleb properly, he’d been approaching the issue wrong the whole time, instead of making Caleb resist corruption from witches he had to make Caleb realize only humans were holy and all others would betray him. A new plan forms in his mind, yes that’ll work.
He turns back to the human, tapping his staff against the ground the orb casting a bright red light across the form in front of him, it was a small girl likely no older than seven, large brown eyes gaze up at him in terror, she makes a sad whimpering sound as he towers over her.
Belos composed himself, slipping off the mask his face one of concern “it’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you.” He extends a hand to help her stand up, kindness and compassion are things that children seem to inherently trust or at least that’s what his experience with the latest copy of Caleb had taught him.
The human hesitates but takes his hand as he pulls her to her feet. “Where am I? Where is my mom.” The girl says her voice having a twinge of panic to it.
“You are a long way from home, you are in the boiling isles child. And I’m afraid you will not be able to go back any time soon.” This sends the girl into a fresh wave of crying.
“I Can’t go back?! No, I’ve already lost dad I can’t lose her too.” She breaks down into sobs. “It will be alright,” Belos says as he begins to gently guide her back towards the castle, she is proving to be quite annoying but he’s not going to squander a gift from the lord.
“What is your name child.” He asks while fabricating a story about how she got here in his head.
“It’s Luz,” she says her eyes still wide as she looks around at the strange environment illuminated only by the red light of Belos’s staff
Over the course of the long walk back Belos told her a honestly simple story of wild witches creating portals and dragging helpless souls through them, doing his best to make it stick in her head that wild witches were evil.
Belos passed the girl off to one of the scouts back in the castle to take her to a room in the restricted section of the castle near Caleb’s. If he played his cards right he could make sure this girl follows the right path and doesn’t fall to the isles latent corruption, if all things went well he’d be able to raise her and Caleb to fear all other witches and demons, and while Caleb would never get to see the human realm again as his physical body was made of corruption and only useful for combat his soul would make it to heaven and the other human would return to the human realm uncorrupted after God’s work is done on the isles.
Luz curls onto the bed exhausted. Everything had happened so fast one minute she’d been chasing after a cute little snake in the woods behind her house the next thing she knew she was in a pitch black forest. She knew mom told her not to play in the woods, but the little snake in the yard had been so cute she couldn’t resist following it. Now she was stuck in somewhere called the boiling isles, due to wild witches, which if she were in a better mood she’d likely be bouncing off walls learning witches were real, just like Azura.
When tears start she can’t stop them, it was too much first she lost dad and now she’d never see mom again. Luz is pulled out of her spiral by a quick knock on the door.
Luz watches as the door, swings open and closing quickly a small form slipping into the room in the brief moment the door is open. Squinting at the figure all she can make out in the dark is a pair of crimson eyes glowing softly, a strange animalistic fear grips her as the eyes near her.
She hears a fain hiss and then a warm light brighten up a good portion of the room is illuminated revealing the strange eyes belong to a child with short blond hair looking at her curiously. “When Freli said someone from the human realm was found in the woods i did not expect it to be a kid.”
He is speaking with a level of level of stiffness that seems strange to Luz he only looks to be a year or two older than she is. Luz brushes the tears away from her eyes as she thinks for a few moments before quickly blurting out “I’m Luz. Who are you? Do you live here?” The prospect of talking to someone else besides the people in creepy bird masks shaking her fully out of her spiral.
“I I’m Hunter, nice to meet you Luz.” He responds tilting his head to the side as he thinks through the rest of her rapid fire questions. “I do live here but I haven’t ever been to most of the castle. “ the sense of unease Luz was feeling becomes background noise as her eagerness outgrows fear. “Do your parents work in the castle is that why you live here?”
His face falls at her question. “My parents are dead, they were killed by wild witches.” Oh “Uncle Belos found me and took me in though, I heard Freli and a few of the other captains talking about wild witches creating the portal. Why can’t they just leave people alone.”
“What exactly is a wild witch?” Luz asks she’d been hearing the term all day but if these people were also witches what made some wild, did they just live in the woods, were they beastlike.
“A wild witch is someone who doesn’t join a coven, oh a coven is the way we group magic, they are the titan’s way of purifying magic, there are nine covens in total though if you are staying here than you’ll likely read about them, the emperor’s coven is the best though, I’m training to join them, though I can’t…. Anyways wild witches don’t join covens and use corrupt magic for their own gain.”
Wow that’s a lot to take in, “I see, does anyone know how they made the portal here?” She knows he just called it corrupt magic but if there was a slight chance she could get home she’d try. “No sorry, I do some research into wild magic for reasons, but nothing about that, I could look for information on it though.” He thinks for a minute “Belos might know but wild magic is the thing he’s leading us away from those things.” He cocks his head to the side his ear twitching
He turns out the light out his eyes the only thing visible in the room against “sorry I can hear someone coming I should go. I’ll see you around Luz.” He slips back out of the room, leaving her in the dark, he left her with a lot of questions about the isles but at least she isn’t alone here, she thinks as she drifts off to restless sleep.